


Yearnings

by Kit



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M, Squick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-15
Updated: 2010-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 20:35:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kit/pseuds/Kit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Queen Lianne surrenders what she cannot have, but only reluctantly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yearnings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Katty](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Katty).



> A remix of my own SFF work in 2006. Just as creepy now, but hopefully better written. Shined up for Kat

**Yearnings**

"I'll miss you once you've gone."

 _I'll miss you. I adore you._ Words that turned into plaintive declarations in most mouths were a simple statement of fact to Lianne. She meant them, so she said them, and never expected that missing her beautiful boy and telling him so would stop him from leaving, and being missed.

She was winding her hair back into a rope:  soft and thin, but long enough to knot up and away off her face. She did this slowly, always looking at him. He was young and unformed, still—a body used to being a child; tanned unevenly, outside-dark on his face and hands; his arms, knees and feet. He was beardless, with eyes that still expected her to know answers. He made her think about poetry, which was the silliest thing in the world. Not the great, fat texts of men that he had learned and quoted at her, proud to find new fat, meanings, but tear-stained scribbles in handmade notebooks, written for no one but herself.

He made a small, confused noise, and Lianne laughed, kissing his hot cheek. "Dear heart," she murmured, and it was still just a statement. "My poor boy."

That noise again, and Lianne shivered, pulling back. "You're mocking me," he said.  

"I have never mocked you," she said firmly, and the boy had the grace to look abashed. Of course he did—he was always graceful, or at least he had been—running madly about proclaiming himself her champion against all foes, no matter how away or how he might need someone taller to unlock the door for him first—and he would be again once he had grown into his limbs, and all the other things. Her poor, exquisite child, so full of potential. She had to smile—the pain felt almost wonderful.

"You will be brave and brilliant," she told him now. "All that learning—you'll soak it up! Promise me?"

He glowered at her, but Lianne didn't mind. "I shouldn't be going," he said. "Shouldn't be this way. If I were just…"

"Ssh." She pressed two fingers to his lips, shaking her head. "None of that," she said shakily. "It'll only be upsetting." She gasped and her smile tuned tearful and bright when sucked he in and bit, trapping them in his mouth, a mix of hot and wet and sharp. (There was that poetry again.)  "If you could, I know," she said, breathless. "I know, dear heart. But you will do the best you can, and I will be so very, very proud of you." She tugged her hand away, and eyed the teeth marks on her fingers.

"And you must remember to take care in Carthak," she said, voice quavering a little. This annoyed Lianne. It would do no good, but slipped out anyway, despite her. To spite her. She placed her other hand on his chest and pressed down. "It will be a different world."

"I'll _make_ it different," he said, and Lianne shook her head, a few tears skittering down her face with the motion. He cried out softly and she saw that he wanted to reach her, but she stood, leaving him and their space. This was all too close. She looked at him from a safe distance: naked, vulnerable, passionate and perfect, and the queen of Tortall wondered how she could ever let him go. He was hers, all her own—the boy who should be king. His leaving would not change the last part, but she knew it would end the first. Children were only ever someone else's for such a very short while, she knew. The knowledge made her ache.

She could see him looking at her, and it was her turn to blush. _He_ could see all this in her face—she hid nothing from him, of course. He implored her silently, splayed out and desperate.

"Mother," he whispered.

Lianne's heart broke. He knew her too well, and did not scruple to hurt with it. "Roger," she said, coming back to him, kneeling on the bed, marvelling again at the strange mix of young and old in his body, so carefully tied by the wrists to her elaborately carved headboard where kings were meant to sleep. Roald had given her the scarves. They were gold—too bright for her to wear, and somehow they managed to turn her sallow—but they were perfect here. She knelt over him, leaning down, hand tangling in the long, dark hair by his temple. "Give us a kiss, now."

He did, and she helped him, supporting his head. If she could, Lianne would have laughed at the relieved whimper she both heard and felt as her tongue brushed over his lips.

She could feel limp tendrils of hair tickling her face. This annoyed her. They would get wet, and in the way. But that was nothing to the choking, deep anger she felt, kissing her beautiful boy, when her pregnancy charm shifted back and forth between her breasts. The hateful thing she had had to slip on before he came to her room. It made her want to sob, to scream, far more than his leaving ever did.

Lianne had always longed for a child—but this one, she had to let go.

There would be bruises on his wrists.  

 


End file.
